- - Are We There Yet
(http://www.muscleandbrawn.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14348)

SaxonViolence

07-12-2013 12:48 AM

Are We There Yet

Friends,

I've taken a couple hits for being a grim, evil, humorless Shabnasticator.

Here is a couple of stories from when I was still Alive, the World was still Real and we still lived in the Present.

{I think the Present ended about 1985 or 86, since then we've slipped ahead and have been living in the Future, technically speaking...}

Go ahead and laugh at me—everyone else does.

Are We There Yet?

This happened back in the mid 90s, when I was dating Debra. Debra was the second of four disastrous love affairs that made me solemnly swear that I would never again date a black lesbian.

Yeah, go ahead and laugh at my expense. I didn't know that Mary was gay but I don't know how it slipped her mind. I mean she asked me out the first time, and offered to pay.

I think some of the guys at work told her how I preferred black women.

Up until I found out about Mary, I'd never known a lesbian—at least, not knowingly. Mary left me for another woman—and I made the mistake of crying on Debra's shoulder...

Maybe dating Debra wasn't one hundred percent bad though. She was the only one of the four that was a good person deep down inside. I ran into her a few years ago. She's married—to a man, of course—and they both attend a Baptist Church quite regularly.

Anyway, I only worked a half-day on Fridays. I went by Debra's house to take her out. There was a small neighborhood tavern across the street from her house and there was a skinny white guy sitting on the steps.

As we drove past, Debra asked me to stop.

"That Dude has been sitting there all morning. He's going to get in trouble hanging around in this neighborhood," She said.

I pulled up along side the curb. He was waiting for his brother and he needed a ride to Washington. I thought he meant Washington Avenue—woulda been a half mile detour.

Debra wanted to drive, so we swapped seats. Fairly early on, it became clear that our new friend wanted a ride to Washington Indiana.

"Debra, pull over and let this dude out of my car. He wants to go to the town of Washington—not the street."

"I don't know where Washington is," Debra said.

"Well I do. Take my word for it, we don't want to go there" I said.

Debra negotiated a hardcore deal—we got $50 for the ride, plus he was going to reimburse us for gas, based on how much gas it took to fill my tank, once we got to Washington—and Debra was going to hang onto his wallet and ID, till he'd made good.

Well, there was a little air in my brake lines. I told Debra that she needed to pump it two or three times before she put the Brake on in earnest.

Before we'd even gotten out of Evansville, she wanted me to drive.

We started heading north-east up Highway 57. We hadn't gone very far, when our rider started talking about how he liked to have sex with hookers. He said that his favorite hooker was Kandi Kane.

I never met Kandi—but word was, she was a dude who dressed like a woman and turned tricks. She killed herself—drowned herself in the mighty Ohio, if I remember correctly—a couple years before.

"You do know that she was a man don't you?" Debra asked him.

He shrugged. It was immaterial to him. He started talking downright crazy shortly after that. Once again, we changed the seating arrangement.

I drove. Debra was in the back seat and Father Kobbadah-Knobbadah was riding shotgun.

Debra brandished my hatchet.

"Do you see this? If you make one false move, I'm going to bury this hatchet in the back of your skull," Debra told him.

"I've died before. Ain't no big thing" Herr Nutzenheimer replied.

"Well just act up, and you will get a chance to die again," She said.

I don't really know how far it was to Washington. When I removed asbestos in Petersburg, I think I used to allow about 90 minutes to get there...

But the many miles of two lane highways, with an eight to twelve foot drop on each side, used to thoroughly intimidate me—and I never was a real fast driver anyway. Washington was about another hour further on.

There's a song about:

"The Corn is as high, as an Elephant's Eye..."

Well that’s how the cornfields were.

"Are we there yet?" Debra would ask about every three-and-a-half minutes.

After about the twenty-seventh time, it got kinda old.

"Debra, I told you that we did not wish to go to Washington. We have to go through Petersburg before we can get to Washington. We won't even be in Petersburg for a good long while yet. You won't miss Petersburg. Once we get through Petersburg, then you can resume your helpful inquiries..." I said.

"We are in Ku Klux Klan Country," Debra says.

"Not really," I counter.

"I'll bet if these Klan Dudes caught me, they'd run a stick through my rectum, and out through my throat. They'd stick a big sour-ass apple in my mouth, and bar-be-que me like a suckling pig, then eat me."

"Not really. Debra, a black person out here is a boilerplate rarity. People have to be in regular contact with black folk, to make them wanna organize a Klavern. Anyway, for the sake of argument—they might tar and feather you. They might even hang you...

"But they wouldn't eat you..." I tried to say.

Meanwhile, Debra has a death-grip on my hatchet, and is slumping lower and lower in the seat.

"Are we there yet?"

Well, when we get to the brother's house, he ain't home. I'm ready to cut bait, and accept my losses...

But at Debra's insistence:

We went by a sister's house, his mother's house, his father—who no longer shared a domicile with the mother—he was not at his house either.

We took him by to see his granny. Granny lives in a seven or eight story old folk's home—but as luck would have it, she's sitting on the lawn out front.

She gives Father Kobbadah-The-Knobadah everything she has on her—just enough to buy big fountain drinks for Debra and me, at the next convenience store we spot.

Now our star boarder wants to go to "Wheatville" or "Wheaton", or something.

I thought that he meant "Wheatonville", a small community just outside Evansville. I was in near despair, thinking of putting up with this freeloading kook for another two or three hours.

Then I realized that it was close to where we already were, so I relented.

This brother was home indeed.

"Hell no! I won't pay you for bringing him here--he's an escaped mental patient from the State Hospital in Evansville," Brother tells me.

"Debra, give the man back his wallet" I hissed.

"I think I'll hang onto it."

"Debra, if you give the man his wallet and we leave promptly, there will be nothing to tie us to this kook. Y'know, we done been unwitting accomplices."

Well, first Debra tries to talk them into feeding us, at least. When they refuse, she gets downright indignant, and wants to know if they're too good to break bread with a black woman.

Somehow I missed the turn-off to get back on 57. After going way out into the boonies—out where the screech owls rape the chickens—I stopped for directions—and to get Debra and me some food and drink.

(It was payday, after all. I couldn't readily afford all the gasoline that I'd wasted—but I was nowhere near as broke as I'd let on around the grazny lopslicker.)

Debra wouldn't go into the store—she was getting her paranoid on about the Kannibalistic Klan again.

But she did have to have a bowel movement—and I had to go into the restroom with her, and literally hold her hand, while she defecated.

By the time I figured out where I was, I was almost in Vincennes. I continued on till I hit 41, turned south and headed home.

So what did you do with your weekend?

Saxon Violence

SaxonViolence

07-12-2013 01:00 AM

Real or Not?

Real or Not?

I was working on the Long and Nasty Railroad, installing ribbon-rail, that's rail in long continuous sections—down around Beattyville, Kentucky. Everybody went home on the weekend, except me. I stayed in the camp cars, 'cause it was a long drive home and I preferred to rest.

Well I had two .45 Autos back then—both 70 series Colts. One was a blued Government Model, the other a satin nickel Combat Commander. Both of them had their grip safeties pinned—something all good pistoleros do. I seldom went very far without one or the other of my companions.

I got the urge to go exercise my trigger fingers. I have one on each hand and they used to get real cranky, if they didn't get to go shooting two or three times a week. So I took my guns and a rucksack containing two or three hundred rounds of hardball and went walking east down the tracks, looking for a likely place to shoot. I went a mile—or two—or five—outside of town—don't remember.

I found an interesting small stone bridge—a natural formation, I'm talking about—about thirty foot up—a stone wall. I stood there and fired most of my appointed practice rounds at the little stone doo-hicky, hoping that I could make it fall.

I hadn't started reloading yet but I fully intended to soon yet I left my brass laying all on the tracks—looking all shiny, like a bunch of lost Krugerrands.

Some chucklehead had told me that you couldn't reload S&W brass and I believed him—how was I to know any different? I left beaucoup good brass lying around 'cause of that peckerwood.

I reloaded my guns. Now this is a pivotal detail of my story—or it matters not at all—you'll have to decide. Back then I still believed in the hollow point placebo for handguns and I thought that Winchester Silvertip Hollow Points were the most potent placebo, by far. I knew that they weren't really silver—nonetheless, the term "Silvertip" was prominent in my mind.

My pistols reloaded; I started back. Part way, a small trail caught my eye. It was wonderment to be sure. It was steep and strewn with jagged rocks. It looked like a dried up streambed but it'd have to be a powerful stream to carry such big rocks down.

I followed the streambed some indeterminate distance into the woods. It seemed real hard to walk on with all those sharp stone surfaces lying slightly catawampus to the ground that way. It felt like trying to walk in an antigravity house.

Of course it was choked with a charming assortment of poison ivy, blackberry, and wild rose and chigger weeds on every side. At the end of the trail was a big ole cave.

Time out for a Public Service Announcement:

I'll try to put this as delicately as I can but your friend and humble narrator used to alter his state of consciousness by chemical means—O yes! Now I've said it.

I used to take speed like M&Ms. I'd layer them for effect. I’d take two yellow phentermine tablets in the morning, along with two or three caffeine tablets to fly fighter support.

Then exactly two hours later, I’d take two white crosses—and maybe one or two black RJS, pink ladies, speckled pups, butterfly speed that also contained phenobarbital—and made my ears ring.

I once quoted Skeeter Skelton's remark about the good old days, "Back when Gila monsters were six-stories tall" to a friend.

"Remember them well, " quoth he. " That was back when blotter acid was fifty cents a pop. Now that I think about it: I believe that’s why the Gila monsters were six stories tall back then!"

Well the cave's entrance was over twice as tall as me (six foot). It was wide enough to drive at least four cars into it abreast—assuming that you had some way to get the cars there in the first place.

I went inside. It was relatively shallow—maybe thirty feet or so and the roof fell rapidly towards the back. It was one big room and not particularly interesting. But it was nice and cool on a blazing hot summer day. There was a big rock in about the center—nice and dry- and just the right height to sit on. I sat down on the rock and decided to rest awhile.

I was sitting on the rock, wishing that I'd thought to bring a cooler. A cold Coke and a cool ham sandwich would have been good about then.

Speaking of coolers—there wasn't a single beer can or cigarette butt on the floor of the cave—no trash at all. Odd. The cave wasn't that far from town. I'd have thought the local teens would have used it for a party spot...

Just as I was thinking this and starting to get drowsy, a cold chill went up and down my spine and all my hair—including body hair—tried to stand on end. I leaped to my feet and drew my Government Model.

I distinctly remember thinking that whatever it was my Silvertip Hollow Points could handle it. Whatever was scaring me seemed to be in the cave—so I backed slowly toward the entrance.

Now here’s where the story starts to get weird. I've told you how tall the entrance was. Well, I had to bend way over to get out—and the lip of the entrance seemed to be all slime coated—and believe you me, I wouldn't have been up for limbo dancing under a slimy rock to get in. It simply wasn't that important to me.

Walking back down that path was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I was all drowsy. I kept thinking that surely it wouldn't hurt to sit down on a rock to rest a moment.

Damned if it didn't seem like that trail was being drawn into the cave like a chameleon’s tongue—albeit with almost glacial slowness. 'Course, with my newfound sluggishness and disorientation, I was only marginally faster—but I was fast enough.

When I got back to the railroad tracks, my strength seemed to come back—a little at first, then more rapidly. When I got back to the camp cars I did some serious thinking.

Everyone knows that haints—as a general rule—don't like silver. It seemed like when I drew my .45 that it hesitated—lost focus somehow—loosened its grip enough—long enough—for me to get away—just barely.

'Course Silvertips aren't really silver but if it was reading my mind at that point, I wasn't real focused on metallurgy. Maybe it just picked up on the word "Silver".

'Course maybe I just imagined the whole thing. All the locals swore that there weren't any caves for miles around- but if you travel much, you know how locals are—pretty much the same the world over.

I was spooked enough that I was more than happy to stay away and let whatever either was—or was not—in that cave well enough alone.

Years later I read about something similar, in a story by Manly Wade Wellman—fiction, of course—but maybe based on some olde-tyme tales he might have heard—Tales based on facts.

Couldn't tell you. I'd like to go back now, after all these years—just to see if there's even a cave there or not. Over the years I've never had enough gas money to travel that far on a whim. Even if I had the money now, my legs aren't in shape to take me that far into the woods. I do well to walk from my car to the grocery and when I shop, I lean heavily on the shopping basket.

I have hopes of getting into shape again some day but you know how it is. Even if I do get back into shape, odds are that I won't get back to Beattyville. I'll probably never be sure—and now, neither will you.

Be cautious in the woods and always try to have at least one magazine full of Silvertips—real Silver Silvertips.